The following 3 videos first appeared on the Help Me Investigate blog, Help Me Investigate: Health and Help Me Investigate: Welfare. I thought I’d collect them together here too. As always, these are published under a Creative Commons licence, so you are welcome to re-use, edit and combine with other video, with attribution (and a link!). First, Heather Brooke’s tips
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I have a confession: I have never liked student projects aimed at students. They tend to betray a lazy approach to creativity: after all, what can be less imaginative than a project aimed at ‘people like me’? They also don’t generally develop the skills that journalism degrees aim for: original research, for example; flexibility in style; or an exploration of
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It’s a few weeks into the Help Me Investigate: Networks project and I’ve been learning a lot about how community management and investigative journalism can support each other. Some of this is building on experiences on the original Help Me Investigate, but one thing in particular is emerging from this project. It’s about how you should write when your
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In the final part of the research underpinning a new Help Me Investigate project I explore the qualities that successful crowdsourcing investigations shared. Previous parts are linked below: Part 1: Investigative journalism; conceptualising Help Me Investigate Part 2: Building the site Part 3: Reflections on the Proof of Concept phase Part 4: The London Weekly case study Part 5: What are the characteristics of
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In the penultimate part of the serialisation of research underpinning a new Help Me Investigate project I explore the qualities that successful crowdsourcing investigations shared. Previous parts are linked below: Part 1: Investigative journalism; conceptualising Help Me Investigate Part 2: Building the site Part 3: Reflections on the Proof of Concept phase Part 4: The London Weekly case study Part 5: What are the
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Continuing the serialisation of the research underpinning a new Help Me Investigate project, in this fifth part I explore the characteristics of crowdsourcing outlined in the literature. Previous parts are linked below: Part 1: Investigative journalism; conceptualising Help Me Investigate Part 2: Building the site Part 3: Reflections on the Proof of Concept phase Part 4: The London Weekly case study What are the
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Continuing the serialisation of the research underpinning a new Help Me Investigate project, in this third part I describe how the focus of the site was shaped by the interests of its users and staff, and how site functionality was changed to react to user needs. I also identify some areas where the site could have been further developed and improved. (Part 1 is
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Continuing the serialisation of the research underpinning a new Help Me Investigate project, in this second part I describe the basis for the way that the original site was constructed – and the experiences of its first few months. (Part 1 is available here) Building the site By 2008 two members had joined the Help Me Investigate team: web developer Stef Lewandowski and community
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As I begin on a new Help Me Investigate project, I thought it was a good time to share some research I conducted into the first year of the site, and the key factors in how that project tried to crowdsource investigative and watchdog journalism. The findings of this research have been key to the development of this new project. They
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Today I’m announcing the launch of a new Help Me Investigate project. Help Me Investigate: Networks aims to make it easier to investigate public interest questions by providing resources and support, links to investigations across the web, and most importantly: a community. The project is launching with a focus on 3 areas: Education, Health and Welfare. We’ll be providing tips from practising
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